


Particular Care and Attention

by AellaIrene



Category: Temeraire - Naomi Novik
Genre: Genderswap
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-09
Updated: 2012-03-09
Packaged: 2017-11-01 17:27:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 990
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/359415
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AellaIrene/pseuds/AellaIrene
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five people who thought about Lady Sophia Lyons (nee Laurence) after she harnessed the dragon Temeraire. (Genderswap fic.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Particular Care and Attention

1\. All George Laurence had ever wanted to do was see his sister Sophia happy. Even after her marriage, he thought of her happiness as one of his primary duties, second only to keeping Elizabeth and the children pleased. He had done his best to console her after their father declared that marriage to Thomas Riley, the son of his political opponent, and a mere sailor,was impossible, and he had danced with her at her wedding to Philip Lyons, and done the necessary when Lyons turned out to be a brute.

He had taken her to Portugal, after Lyons had died, because she never _smiled_ anymore, and he thought that the sea air and the change of scenery would do her good.

“I would do anything,” he said to Elizabeth, the night before they left, “If it would make Sophy smile. Anything at all.”

He had not thought that the thing to do it would be harnessing a Chinese dragon of independent leanings, but the deed was done, and he would simply have to smooth things over with their father, because Sophy was smiling, giddy as a bride, and George could have kissed the damned thing.

2\. “At least she’s a widow,” Lenton said, with the air of a man dredging a very small nugget of gold from a latrine pit. Jane had to agree. Lord Allendale was furious enough at a once-married daughter being taken into a Corps, an unmarried one would probably have provoked an apoplexy. And an MP’s wife in the Corps hardly bore thinking of.

“What do you think of her?” he asked. “She’s damned formal.”

“She’s Allendale’s daughter,” Jane said. “She’s spent most of her life in society drawing rooms. But she’s ready to learn, and willing, and she’s got a good head on her shoulders. And Temeraire adores her.”

Lenton hmphed.

“Emily likes her,” Jane added. “And it will do us no harm, to have someone who understands all those society fol de rols, if only we can have her understanding tactics as well, and I think she will.”

“I suppose,” Lenton said unhappily, looking at his desk.

“She cares greatly for honour,” Jane said. “Her own, and the Corps’. She will not let us down, if she can avoid it.”

Lenton looked like a man suffering a digestive complaint, but conceded the point.

3\. "There is no need for her to be so damned unfriendly," Harcourt was saying as Granby came into the dining room. "Stuck up strumpet."

"Catherine, that's unfair," Chenery said, frowning.

"She hasn't even the decency to ay more than good morning to you, or Berkely!" Harcourt protested, then caught sight of Granby, and went silent.

"Captain Lyons?" Granby asked, ladling himself some porridge. Harcourt looked down at her plate, and Granby wondered what on earth to say. What he had concluded of her marriage was not to be repeated, but Granby could not imagine that such a man would care for his wife being familiar with other men: and it was men that she was formal with. He looked helplessly over at Captain Roland, who had taken Lyons under her wing.

“She is just not used to our ways yet,” she said, “She will be, soon enough, and she’ll let go of her ton manners then.”

“I don’t think much of them,” Harcourt muttered mutinously. “And those gowns she wears.”

“I think she looks very nice,” Berkely said, and everyone looked at him.

Privately, Granby agreed, but he could not say such a thing, and so kept mum.

4\. “We must find you a gown,” Captain Lyons said, the morning after they arrived in Dover.

“I have one,” Emily tried, but Captain Lyons was looking very martial, and she didn’t think there was much point in arguing, though she had never seen much use in gowns.

“You must wear them more often,” Captain Lyons said, “To become used to them. As an aviator, you may wear them rarely, but it is best to be practiced when you do.”

Emily considered this. Captain Lyons looked at her.

“All men would be tyrants, if they could,” she said. “It is our business to prevent them, and to disguise ourselves in such a way that they will not recognise our stratagems. If you wear a gown, why, you are unremarkable, and people will listen when you speak.”

“I suppose,” Emily said. “As long as it is not pink.”

“Certainly not,” said Captain Lyons. “You should never wear pink, unless it is strong pink, and you are rather too young for that. Blue, I thought, or green.”

“Green,” Emily said thoughtfully. She liked green. And she supposed it was no worse than the manners Lyons insisted that she learnt, or the dancing.

5\. “Did you ever have an egg?” Temeraire asked, one night when Sophy was sitting at his foot, reading a sonnet.

“No,” she said. “No, I never did.”

She sounded a little sad about it, and Temeraire wondered why. “Did you want one?”

He could not see why, for human eggs produced a great deal of mess and bother.

“Yes,” Sophy said. “Yes, I did, and my husband did too.”

“Oh.” Temeraire had always, secretly, been glad that Sophy’s husband was dead, for if he were not, he would never have had Sophy. Sophy did not seem to miss him, very much, but perhaps she was hiding it. 

“Would you like an egg now?” Perhaps, if she had someone else to make one with, she would miss him not at all, and Temeraire would not mind, if she made it with someone nice, like Granby, or Ferris, or perhaps Jane.

“I do not think I can,” Sophy said very softly, and turned the page of the book. “Here is a very pretty poem. Let not the marriage of true minds admit impediments...”

“But you are my Captain,” Temeraire said. Surely that made all better.

“Yes,” she said, smiling. “I am.”

**Author's Note:**

> Sophy quotes Abigail Adams to Emily.
> 
> There may be more of this, at some point.


End file.
